Your job as a parent is to take the raw material of your offspring and mold it into something useful — for you, them, and society.
Yes, children are the future, every child is precious, and other empty platitudes…
But, without the scolding, molding, and patient development from a parent, your child is, practically speaking, worthless. Until they become something.
That’s where you come in.
One way to accelerate their development into a worthwhile human is to teach kids how to flip the downside into an upside.
If kids are nothing until you help them become something, it follows that their weaknesses are a result of personality traits and dispositions. What I’ve come to discover is that reframing can reveal those things to be valuable strengths.
Here’s how to reframe.
Teach your children that they are not perfect
A little nuance is in order. I often tell people they are perfect. And children are the most perfect among us. But I guess I don’t mean perfect.
I’m not sure how to square this exactly, but I’ll try. Whether you believe in a Creator (I do) or not, your child is an expression of something that is precisely and uniquely them. That is marvelous!
Are they finished work? We all know the answer to that. While your child might be a masterpiece, s/he is more of a masterpiece in the making.
Like Michaelangelo taking a perfect block of marble and chipping off the unneeded material until a work of art was revealed.
It’s a sloppy argument, maybe. But I teach my kids that they are right where they need to be (a sort of perfection) which is on a path toward greater things (a different sort of perfection).
Let’s try a different metaphor. Imagine a theoretical machine that produces widgets. You put in raw materials and it cranks out those widgets with zero material waste and a zero flaw rate.
That machine might still need maintenance. It might still be optimized for speed, energy consumption, or making bigger and better widgets.
There is room for improvement, and your kids need to hear it from you.
Make an honest inventory of weaknesses
Then they need to identify where they can make improvement. You can guide them, but let them do it. Model it by identifying your own weaknesses with them. This will give you an opportunity to practice the reframing.
I did this recently. My son wanted to tell a story, and he was interrupted multiple times by his brother, who tends to be more vocal. Classic brother stuff.
The younger one shut down, and even after a sincere apology and some prodding from me, refused to go any further. He was hurt.
It seems silly, but I totally understand because that is me! I have held these mini-grudges since I can remember. I will refuse anyone the privilege of my wit, wisdom, or curiosity if they seem the slightest bit unappreciative.
And there is a little powerpack of information for your kids. They get their traits from you and your fellow parent. Not only does it make it a bit easier to accept some flaws, but it gives them a tighter bond with the very people who can help them improve.
I don’t know what psychologists would call this tendency. To me, it’s a mix of oversensitivity and insecurity. I’ve gone through the exercise of identifying other weaknesses. It’s hard to admit, but once I’ve admitted to myself that I have them, it becomes more of objective and less of a moral failing.
That’s what you do with your kids. Help them label their weakness. Then you work on it together and move on to the next step.
Identify a situation in which those weaknesses would be of value
Now that my son can categorize and name his weakness, he can reflect. He can develop a vocabulary to describe the issue objectively. He can also apply that descriptive language to other situations.
For example, I recognize that I am sensitive and insecure. That gives me an advantage when communicating with other people who have similar insecurities. I am careful to not dismiss what they choose to share with me. I listen more.
My son has the same opportunity. We talk about emotional intelligence and the importance of listening with care and empathy. I have to teach him how to apply the tendencies that lead to his weakness. Here is the key question.
“When would your sensitivity help you?”
He needs to answer that.
I know the answer. A few months ago he spent the day with a friend who had broken his leg, and was therefore severely restricted from doing the things he normally loved. When I picked him up in the evening, the friend’s mother gushed about my son.
It was clear that the boy with the broken leg was at risk of depression, and my son had helped him avoid it.
That’s the flip side of over-sensitivity. My beautiful son quietly recognized when someone else struggled and stepped in just as quietly.
Define the trait that makes it valuable
The final step is to define the trait.
“He has been such a good friend. He helps him carry his bags. He asks how he’s doing. He’s so compassionate.”
He has heard this before. But kids being who they are often dismiss things the instant it makes them awkward. Your job as a parent includes making them feel appropriately awkward.
Getting him to recognize it and describe it helps him develop it.
Discuss other times they have shown compassion, or whatever trait applies. Let them explore the idea. It’s an opportunity for higher-order thinking. From an understanding of traits, you can help your kids understand and appreciate the difference among dispositions (prolonged and diffuse tendencies,) moods (temporary manifestations of emtions,) and skills (things they can learn through practice).
Just knowing they can get better at something like handling their emotional responses through practice and reflection can be a major breakthrough.
You can follow this model for any weakness. It’s not a matter of simply re-labeling a weakness as a strength. It’s about finding the nuance in our behavior and exploring it through deep conversations with you kids.
The exercise will lead to priceless conversations with your children and give you clues about how to shift your own weaknesses, retooling them to become strengths.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Will Pantaleo on Unsplash
